Phonological Perversion as Detriment to Effective Use of Spoken English among Secondary School English Teachers in Non-Native Context

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of phonological perversion in the use of spoken English among secondary school English Teachers in Ogun State, Nigeria. The population of the study comprised all English Language teachers in the selected schools with the sample size of 120. The validated instruments used for collecting data were pronunciation test and questionnaire. A reliability index of 0.84 was achieved using Cronbach’s alpha. The data collected were statistically analyzed using frequency, percentages and t-test at 0.05 level of significant. The findings revealed that the English Language teachers in Ogun State whose language background is Yoruba had problems in pronouncing some English sounds, e.g., /v/ and /f/, /z/ and /s/, /ei/ and /e/, /i?/ and /ea/, /i:/ and /i/ and h-dropping (hard as add). It is recommended that Nigerian teachers of English Language be professionally developed in the rudiments of English sounds for intelligent communication.